Ego Archives - Relationship & Sexuality Counselling Specialists

Owning Your Shadow

June 7, 2017 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

Owning your shadow is the most powerful thing you can do for your relationship…

When we first fall in love it seems we are perfect for each other. As time goes by you see the cracks beneath the surface where they seem not so perfect for you, but in fact they still are. It just means its time to start owning your shadow.

Because even though at a conscious level we choose someone to be in relationship with, the attributes that live our unconscious mind even more powerfully choose someone for us who is most able to activate our shadows.

Our shadows are the parts of us we hide from ourselves. They’re the parts of us that we have decided are unacceptable and we need to hide them or we won’t be loved.

They can be negative traits or even positive ones. We hid the positive ones because they were unacceptable to our family, culture or religion of origin.

But what we hold in shadow leaves us feeling incomplete, always lost and looking for what is missing.

We can look for it by our neediness and in our addictions- to each other, to love, sex and the list goes on. But the answer isn’t there, it’s in us.

Our partners show us our shadows by unconsciously triggering us into feeling them.

They do this by pissing us off. When our partners are pissing us off they’re actually giving us a gift.

We find it by looking at ourselves rather than pointing the finger and trying to change them. For pointing the finger and trying to ‘fix’ our partners or our relationship is where most relationships start to fall over. Over time when our partners are no longer willing to accommodate us, or us them, is when relationships end. We miss the gifts they offer us along the way, gifts that will take us deeper into connection rather than push us away.

How do we recognize our shadows?

When your partner pisses you off drop your righteous ego and instead of focussing on their behaviour, what they’re doing wrong and how they should fix it to stop you from hurting instead look at your own feeling for the answer. This feeling will be one we’ve tried to shut down in ourselves and accessing it will take our relationship much further than blaming our significant other. This doesn’t mean we have to accept any and all behaviour our partners give us, far from it. It just allows us to sort it from a clear, untriggered place.

Owning Your Shadow Practice:

(a) Centre and ground yourself with your ABC and think of something your partner, (or even ex-partner, parent, anyone) does that pisses you off or hurts you the most. Take the time to really flesh out this experience in your mind- how are they looking, what are they saying/doing and find the feelings that always come along with it.

(b) Detach the image of your partner from your mind and focus on your own feeling instead.

(d) Trust this feeling has a message for you and go into it to see what lies inside it- notice whether there is there a word, an image or another feeling you can identify

(e) Ask yourself what is this calling forth in you? Keep going deeper until you find the original pain point in you.

(f) You’ve got it when you see it is really nothing about your partner at all but something in you.

(g) Ask yourself what does this need to be healed in you- just acknowledgement, something you need to express, a new belief or behaviour to choose? What support do you need to do so? Can you imagine it in your mind’s eye and give it to yourself? (Your mind cannot tell the difference).

(h) The next time you observe this behaviour in your partner notice how you can choose to respond differently and create a better outcome in the same situation.

With major triggers that have a lot of emotion or layers in them we may need to do this process a few times to get it all.

How do you know when a shadow has been fully seen and owned?

The first step is you being able to see it.
The second is that you feel like it controls you.
The next step is being able to see it with some detachment and less emotionality.
When it’s fully shifting you might experience an inner feeling of a letting go, or ‘shift in yourself.
Sometimes you can ‘see’ in imaginary veil clearing before your eyes as you move out of illusion into greater clarity.
You can sit in ease in situations that in the past would have triggered intense emotion.
You feel open to the other person in the situation yet without attachment to any ‘stuff’- yours or theirs.
You can see your shadow and have a really good laugh at yourself.
You can play out owning your shadow in your sex lives, (with a consenting lover) eg. the bad boy/bad girl, the naïve innocent, the powerful dominant etc.

If you need support in seeing and owning your shadow contact Annette or Graeme via email or PH 1800 TANTRA.

Intimacy: What Actually Is It?

May 17, 2016 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

What Actually Is Intimacy?

It is a word that brings up desire, fear, hurt or confusion, there are generally no neutral responses to it.

If you look in the dictionary for the meaning of the word intimacy there are many more words given trying to explain it: a ‘close familiarity or friendship’, a cosy and private or relaxed atmosphere or ‘the intimacy between a husband and wife’. It’s a closeness, togetherness, attachment, connection, warmth, affection, warm feelings, love, affinity and understanding. Yet it is even much more than this…

Did you know there are at least 13 different types of intimacy?

The Different Levels of Intimacy:

Intellectual Intimacy–
The sharing of mutual or even opposing ideas in an atmosphere of openness that brings a feeling of mutual appreciation, warmth and enjoyment.
Practical Intimacy-
The sharing of physical tasks that requires co operation and brings a sense of solidarity, of being on the same team working towards a common goal, offering us sense of place and achievement.
Physical Intimacy-
Sharing physical connection between our bodies. This can be as simple as sitting next to each other on the couch, holding hands, lying together with arms holding each other. It can involve active touch or complete stillness. It may or may not include genitals.
Sensual Intimacy-
Sharing our bodies through touch with a desire to experience the sensations as they arise, without any attachment to an outcome, just being in the moment. It may or may not include our genitals.
Sexual Intimacy-
Sharing our thoughts, desires and/or physical bodies, including genitals, usually with the intent to create sexual pleasure, and often though not always, orgasm.
Enmeshed Intimacy-
Where we experience a sense of no separation between ourselves and the other person, their feelings and thoughts become our own and we cease to exist. We need the presence of the other to experience ourselves, similar to what we experienced, if we were lucky, in the first few months of life with our mother in an atmosphere of love and safety and where we all long to go back to. If we weren’t lucky enough to experience it at some level we’re always looking to do so. We can experience this in the early days of a new relationship, when we are so in love and open to each other it feels like there is a blissful sense of no separation. It can feel good to the one who is lost in the other but is generally uncomfortable for the one on the receiving end and is not healthy on a long term basis. As adults we need to move on from this childlike sense of intimacy and find ourselves more fully. We can also be intimately enmeshed with our beliefs, our family, our culture, community and society, unaware of how we give ourselves away to these parts of life.
Isolated Intimacy-
A state where we are in fear of intimacy with ourselves or another. We minimize the amount we feel by focussing on our thoughts, by keeping busy and putting our attention on things outside of our inner reality. We trust rational knowledge and what we can see over the unknown realm of feelings and value being in control over connection with another. If we do feel we mostly feel loneliness.
Personal Intimacy-
Sharing connection with ourselves where we listen to our own thoughts and feel our own bodies and feelings fully. We’re comfortable with our inner reality, our intuitive wisdom as well as our intellectual understandings. We experience a sense of wholeness or completeness in ourselves, separate to yet not apart from everyone or everything else, capable of empathy and compassion without losing ourselves. We start to take ownership of our own beliefs, values and responsibilities rather than remaining in enmeshment with those of others.
Emotional & Heart Connected Intimacy-
Sharing our personal thoughts and feelings about ourselves, about who we each are and what we are experiencing, with empathy and compassion for both ourselves and our partners. The deeper we open our hearts the more fully we experience this kind of intimacy. This is where we start to see behind our masks and take chances of being fully seen in our naked humanity. It’s where we start to get messy, creating the cracks where the light gets in. Up until this stage we’ve been able to keep our cool exterior in place yet now our imperfections need to show. It is these very cracks that create the sense of deeper togetherness, with a feeling of connection and shared experience. Despite our illusions about intimacy this stage is not always pretty as we reveal ourselves and our Shadows come out to play. This is the stage of intimacy we love to hate! It is important to balance this kind of intimacy with intimacy with ourselves to be able to stay grounded in it.Our Hearts have a multitude of talents and is much more powerful than we give it credit for – it is a place of painful feelings, a place for healing our pain as well as a place of rest, love and inner safety. It is where our Ego self meets our Higher or Whole self, so it is both messy and a portal to Spirit.
Energetic Intimacy: This is where we ‘sense’ or perceive where another person is at, beyond what we can logically see. We need to be very present with or aware of ourselves to sense another. We can exchange this through talking about our experience or we can take it a few steps further. Using our minds, breath and energy bodies we can create experiences of intimate energetic exchange and unity with another. Tantra is famous for these kinds of practices.
Soul Intimacy: We experience this most commonly through eye gazing. Trite but true, the eyes really are the windows to our souls- our soul being the human part of us regarded as immaterial. Our eyes allow this inner reality to be glimpsed by another. It is a very vulnerable act to allow another to see us up this close and why you’ll find it is quite a precious gift to share with another. Even if it is just at the supermarket checkout- meeting the sales person directly in the eye with a clear hello or thankyou can make their day. Eye contact is a powerful yet increasingly rare commodity.
Spiritual Intimacy-
A sense of being with another person, or with what we believe to be God or Spirit in a moment of timelessness and boundarylessness, where time and separateness cease to exist.Our sense of ourselves becomes pure awareness and feeling, ‘we’ still exist yet have a oneness with everything that is, including God or Spirit. In this heightened state we have no awareness of anything outside of the present moment, or of any personal needs. Spiritual intimacy is often experienced in sex, eye gazing, meditation, prayer and other religious experiences.
Ego-lessness-
Where we go beyond the boundaries of who we think we are into the experience of being pure bliss and freedom, most commonly experienced through moments of deep heart openness, meditation and orgasm. Westill retain awareness of ourselves in the experience.
No-thingness-
Where we go beyond our sense of having a personal Self and in fact the only way we know we have experienced it is when we come back and understand we’ve been ‘somewhere else’. It has a different quality to the nothingness to sleep and we feel ‘altered’ by the experience.

Each Level of Intimacy is powerful in its own right and one is not better or less than another. In fact they are most powerful in concert with other levels. It is helpful to understand how the different levels interact in our relating with another.

Sharing Intimacy at the level of our Ego self.

Intimacy Levels 1-7 are related to our Ego Self, our personality or who we think we are. This means we can exchange information, stories, laughs, pleasure, love and more from a place where we seek to be comfortable and generally remain in control. Problems are solved at an intellectual level of understanding and negotiation. These levels also contain aspects of the Shadow Self, the part of us that fear, fight, hide, manipulate and all the other delicious ways we can interact without much awareness.

Intimacy Levels 1-7 + 8-9 are the ones related to our Intimate Relationships.

In relating with another we can experience each of these levels of Intimacy, either separately or together. For example we can be connected Intellectually, Physically and Sexually with or without Emotional & Heart Connected Intimacy. We can connect Intellectually and Sexually through sharing a sexual fantasy with no physical connection. We can connect Emotionally and Intellectually without any physical or sexual connection. The more levels we combine the more Intimacy we experience.

When we become more aware and comfortable in Personal Intimacy we can trust ourselves and have the courage to experience Emotional Intimacy with others. Because both the risks AND the level of awareness is higher Emotional Intimacy it can seem scary and painful and we have a tendency to make it and ourselves wrong in it. We’re dancing between the Ego that wants to be in control, protected and safe vs the beginnings of our Whole Self or Higher Self that is comfortable being outside of control, attachment and expectation, finding safety from within. It is here we risk dropping our Ego masks and being seen for who we authentically are without collapsing.

Emotional & Heart Intimacy can be messy, that’s the very nature of it. It’s the crack where the light gets in. In this place it is OK to make mistakes, in fact taking risks and making mistakes is how we learn here rather than from a book. This path seems the most difficult in the beginning and most of us struggle here but once the skills are learned the benefits are profound and every step you take in its direction has rewards. Problems here can be addressed at multidimensional levels. It is a lifetime journey to get comfortable in Personal and Emotional Intimacy. Starting with Personal Intimacy is vital, then gentle and slowly more challenging areas of Emotional and Heart Connected Intimacy because afterall, isn’t sharing with others the biggest part of being human??

The Heart is a place of painful feelings, a place for healing our pain as well as a place of rest, love and inner safety. It is where our Ego self meets our Higher or Whole self, so it is both messy and a portal to Spirit.

Energetic and Soul Intimacy cross the line between human and what lies within our unseen places. We begin experiencing them from our humanness but they can take us beyond it. For example in Energetic Intimacy moving your energies together can bring a feeling of total immersion in each other even without physical contact. In eye gazing you can notice your pattern changing in their facial expressions- becoming a young child or someone ageless, or a feeling on oneness with them.

Intimacy Levels 10-12 are related to Spirit

Experiences of Egolessness are helpful in that they show us we are more than who we think we are and so make it easier to let go of attachment to our personality masks, to our fears and limitations. They are a place to visit for this reason, they’re not somewhere we need to permanently stay. We are here having a human experience and these experiences are tools for the journey rather than the journey itself.

Qualities required to experience more intimacy in your relationship:

Understanding of the process
Beginnings of Personal Intimacy
Courage to practice engaging at different levels
Trust in yourself
A willingness to go first, if you’re the one seeking intimacy
A willingness to be vulnerable and the understanding it is a pathway to connection
Ability to discern appropriate levels of intimacy depending on the given situation
An ability to self validate- to be ok with yourself even if the other person disagrees with you
An ability to self soothe- to feel ok to meet your own needs if the other person is unable to meet you where you are at
Empathy or compassion for the other if they are in a different place to you

Exploration Activity:

Consider which Levels of Intimacy you currently engage in?
Which ones do you value most?
Which would you like to experience more of?
Would you be willing to start exploring intimacy with yourself?
Would you be willing to take small steps into greater Emotional Intimacy, despite its messiness?

If so, begin with these questions:

What happens when your partner gets really close – do you feel happy or uncomfortable?
What happens when they move away- do you feel relief or stressed, even rejected or abandoned?
Were you aware of/comfortable when your parents showed physical affection with each other?
Were you well nurtured and held as a baby?
What was intimacy like when you were growing up?
Did you all sit around the dinner table one big happy family?
Did everyone get a chance to be heard?
Was physical touch encouraged in a healthy way?
Were personal boundaries encouraged and respected?
Did you socialize together or do your own thing?
Were you enmeshed with one or both parents- not allowed to be an individual with your own separate thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions, hobbies?
Or were you a surrogate spouse for one of them- bearing the brunt of their emotional needs and finding intimacy a burden?
How comfortable are you in eye contact with another?
Can you receive touch without it needing to be sexual?
Can you engage in emotional intimacy during sex? Do you prefer not to?
Can you engage in purely sensual play without needing it to become sexual?
Is meditation a part of your life? Would you be open to the possibility?
What does the idea of intimacy with God or Spirit bring up for you?

Each of these experiences will determine your ability to be comfortable with intimacy and what kind you now seek.

If you would like support in further exploring the different Levels contact Annette or Graeme here or Ph 1800 TANTRA

Couples Communication: The Dishwasher Syndrome…

May 4, 2016 By Annette & Graeme 2 Comments

Otherwise known as the saga of the dishwasher, the garden tap and the kitty litter…

An exercise in couples communication!

We have all witnessed, or experienced ourselves, the surging intensity of emotion that appears to explode out of nowhere over some insignificant happening.

Such as when your significant other stacks the dishwasher incorrectly- or at least incorrectly as you see it. They then react ‘over emotionally’ (as you see it) to your kindly imparted (many times), extensive (and correct!) dishwasher stacking theories in your attempts to ‘help’.

Or some other similar, major life changing event occurs with matching intensity that if left uncorrected feels like it will stop the sun from rising…

We come across many couples who have their own version of the dishwasher story… such as the garden tap that is left on or switched off too early, or the kitty litter that is, or is not changed appropriately. One of our own versions of this story is the over anxious retreat facilitator stressing about getting everyone on to the bus on time vs the one who wafts about trusting that all will happen perfectly…Here we show what may really be going on under the surface and how to shift it.

About that dishwasher…

If you’re the dishwasher authority, in the interests of proper decorum and being a caring partner, you may decide to say nothing and simply fume inside every time about how it ‘should’ be done. You may choose re pack it yourself (the right way) and be taken aback when your significant other explodes again with what feels like totally unjustified anger towards you. You may decide to give them further advice on how to do it properly with similar results. Or perhaps you just withdraw into a quiet, sulky state of wounded martyrdom…

If you’re the dishwasher ‘criminal’ you find yourself responding with what feels like totally justified anger towards your partner’s behaviour. Finding yourself instantly wounded you get defensive and quickly move into attack, wielding your offensive weapons of shame, blame or criticism at your partner.

From here couples communication quickly descends into a vortex of mutual recrimination, all the while knowing it is pointless but none the less still constrained to go there. In a situation where one person is triggered into emotion the other person can help restore equilibrium. In this scenario, where both of you are triggered it’s much more difficult.

We all have been either the do’er (dishwasher stacker) or the do’ee (dishwasher re stacker), experiencing but not understanding the emotionally intensity that illogically arises on both sides.

The question is Why??

So why does this emotion happen, seemingly coming out of nowhere, usually leaving a trail of confusion, hurt and bewilderment? As with most relationship, family and even work disputes, the catalyst is often something insignificant with an ensuing, and projected intensity that is way out of proportion to the alleged incident. When this happens, people are caught up in their own unique mixture of reactionary emotional responses and a couples communication goes out the window.

These overblown and illogical responses to arguments about inanimate objects like a dishwasher or garden tap, are actually not about the tap or the dishwasher, but something else entirely. Even if your particular trigger is more complex, such as the way your partner talked to a woman at work or the amount of time they spent on the phone with their mother, the out of proportion response is the same.

In this situation understanding comes after the feeling.

That’s why it’s important to deal with the outburst of feeling first rather than with the issue itself.

It’s the underlying feeling that is likely to be driving the outburst in the first place and we can’t discover what this is through attempting to negotiate the behavior. In fact, negotiation takes us further away from potential understanding.

When negotiating in emotional trigger our Egos’ rational brain attaches 90% bullshit to 10% truth, making it impossible to get anywhere worthwhile. It becomes like 6 guys living in a house together attempting to negotiate the cleaning duties. Several totally different versions of the one story start vying for attention leading us around and around in a hell of our own minds…

Instead we can choose to deal with the feeling in the body rather than the words in our brain. This seems counter intuitive because we don’t want to feel the hurt. Yet choosing to connect with the hurt rather than avoid it makes sense as it quickly puts you back in the driver’s seat of yourself.

Owning our stuff!

We can start to do this by simply owning our reality; by saying ‘I’ve been really triggered here, I’ve got no idea why but I am!’ For if you’re the one feeling it, is totally 100% yours, no matter how unpleasant or unjustified it may feel. As we’ve said, it’s most likely has nothing to do with the dish washer, the tap or the kitty litter, your advisor or anyone else.

Simply taking a breath, connecting with your body and asking yourself “What am I feeling?” and owning that “I feel hurt, offended, simply pissed off or whatever, and it’s NOT about you” is a great start. It is acknowledging that this is your feeling and the outside actions are simply a catalyst that has plugged you into your deeper unexpressed emotional self.

Owing our feelings, even if we don’t understand them, takes the heat out of the situation. It stops us from projecting our bullshit stories onto our partners and brings a feeling of reconnection with ourselves. It allows us to start to see more clearly that our Ego’s games of story are not real, even though we may have been totally convinced of it a few moments before. It invites our partner to stop doing the same, as we’re longer ‘in it’ to argue with them. If they still try, we’re more easily able to detach from it and see it for what it really is- a triggered response that will take you nowhere worth going.

The most common response in these circumstances is not to feel and to project our hurt or anger back onto the other, usually with a little more added intensity, just to make sure we get heard…

It seems easier but it isn’t!

It seems easier to project that unpleasant emotional response part of ourselves somewhere else, onto someone or something outside of us, even though our unpleasantness has nothing to do with them or what happened.

Projections are a natural response in defending ourselves when we’re feeling attacked or criticized (whether this is the actual reality or not). We project because of our own unresolved emotional baggage that is being presented to us by someone else. This someone else often doesn’t understand our emotional triggers as they are totally unique to us, as their triggers will be to them.

Once we’ve owned that we’ve been triggered, that it’s our stuff, we’ve connected to our bodies and felt the actual physical feeling that’s there we can then ask ourselves what is the underlying truth that is asking to be acknowledged?

We can support ourselves to get to this truth by staying connected with our bodies and with the feeling, taking a few breaths into the feeling. Breathing into the uncomfortable feeling allows it to move into something more easeful. This connection awakens our intuitive body/mind and brings the deeper truth of our hearts to the surface.

Our body speaks the truth

When we get this truth we feel a ‘shift’ in ourselves, our bodies soften and our minds clear. This truth will have a minimum of words, something like ‘I needed to feel loved or respected or heard’ or ‘I feel unworthy’… If there is not this shift in your body or you’re still attached to defending yourself or being right you’re not there yet, go back to the feeling. The heart doesn’t care about being right, or even getting what it needs just then, it only wants to be listened to.

With awareness, practice and a desire to own your stuff, these triggers are gifts into your deeper emotional self for each of you. It takes couples communication to a whole new level. Once acknowledged your trigger ceases to be a trigger in the same situation- you can laugh where once you were spiraled into suffering. If it is a deep primal need that is not being met in your relationship (showing up as a pattern) you might benefit from finding new ways to meet it.

It’s short term pain for long term gain.

As you can see owning your emotional response creates choices for you in how you respond and the ability to more carefully choose which words to use in your reply. Owning our emotional feelings means we experience what we’re feeling rather than becoming entangled in some game of tit for tat over an inanimate object.

It is challenging to do at first as we literally ‘go unconscious’ when we’re triggered and making a conscious choice is at first impossible. Yet setting an intention to look at your triggers more clearly will help you slowly gain more clarity and control.

Not owning our stuff and continually projecting it out into the world is very uncomfortable for others to be around and a death knell for a relationship (be it with your intimate partner, your family or at work) so do yourself and your loved ones a favour by being willing to feel instead. This personal element is usually what is underneath most relationship issues, family, workplace or other disputes that occur when there is more than one person involved. Being willing to feel is the beginning of freedom from it.

The Duel of Two Truths

September 22, 2015 By admin Leave a Comment

In the duel of two truths what is really going on here?

So often in a relationship we get to a place of ‘I’m right’ so you ‘must be wrong’.

The more we argue the more WE seem SO right and our partners SO wrong.

There is only one way for this scenario to end up from here, with each person in their opposing corners, pistols drawn and one body about to hit the floor.

The real truth of the matter is that we can either be right in our relationships, or we can be happy, but we can’t always both.

And we’ll show you a little trick at the end of this post that will show you being right probably has little to do with the actual truth and more to do with your Ego getting attached.

In the meantime a fabulous relationship skill is to understand that in relationships there is usually more than one truth. It is not simply a case of right and wrong but more often a case of there being many truths.

This is because much of the detail in relationship is subjective, being each individual’s own internal experience rather than just concrete facts. This is where we can get lost on the merry go round of endless, pointless argument trying to be right. Instead of falling into the duel of two truths can you challenge yourself to go a little deeper and see what might be the underlying subjective but equally valid points of view.

Take Annie & Roger for example:

Annie is angry that Roger came home from work too late to look after the children and allow her the time to go out to her book club meeting. On the surface it looks like Roger is in the wrong and Annie is ‘right’.

Looking a little further this couple finds that:
Annie has made the assumption that Roger will know her desire to go out and be home in time without having to remind him (been there?)
Roger is having a busy time at work , feeling snowed under and emotionally closed, unavailable to focus on Annie’s needs (been here?).

Looking even deeper gold is found:
Annie acknowledges her old pattern of not speaking up for her needs and then paying out on Roger for not ‘seeing’ her. Owning this allows her to drop her stance of resentment and her heart re opens.
Roger owns that he has been allowing work to take over his personal space and that he misses the intimacy of his relationship with Annie and the children and wants more of them again.

So this situation ends in a hug instead of a furious argument ending in a cold war that lasts for days. Roger and Annie have been able to hold onto themselves enough to hear each other and end up taking their relationship to a new place of understanding and acceptance.

Annie’s ownership of her pattern gives Roger the space to draw closer to her and his expression of his sadness about missing her draws Annie closer to him.

Understanding another is not about agreement with them. Getting where someone is coming from is about staying open to them, if not to their point of view.

In disagreement it is easy to feel wrong or wronged and ark up or pull away. In this place it is more powerful to hear each other than to try and fix anything. For in hearing each other and seeing the different layers of truth you’ll feel a heart opening and connection arising between the two of you once again.

Humans beings are ultimately logical beings and no matter how incomprehensible another’s behaviour may initially appear to us if we listen and see clearly enough it will always make sense, even if we don’t agree with it. If you can open yourself to hearing where your partner is really coming from, as well as sharing fully of yourself you will find that you can probably both be right and wrong at the same time and it won’t matter. You’ll see it’s just your individual personalities and life experience seeing different sides of the same coin.

You’ll start to see each other more clearly than the issue that divides you. To be heard, seen and validated is one of our most basic human needs and offers much to your relationship.

The softening between you allows new, previously unforeseen ideas, outcomes and possible solutions to arise. This is where seeing the duel of two truths more clearly works for you.

And that little trick we mentioned to see how your Ego might be confusing things?

Try this simple but enlightening game. (Choose a time when you are in a good place with each other):

Decide to argue opposite sides of a point of view.
Have a timer handy (mobile phones are good for this)
The argument needs to be about something totally nonsensical so that neither of you starts with an invested interest in winning or being right eg. should coins have holes in the centre of them or should they be solid.
You have 2 minutes to convince the other person of your argument.
Set your times and GO!
In the two minutes you can see how your Ego works. Does it become somehow adamant that it is right? And the longer you argue the more right you become? Do you get passionate about it and raise your voice, jump up out of your chair to make a point? Does it even feel like a fight to the death?
This is your Ego coming out to play- it wants to be right no matter how illogical the argument might be.
See if you can see it for what it is as once you get this it becomes easier to let go of attachment to being right and become more open to seeing both sides of any argument.

Or do you find the opposite- does your Ego want to collapse and give up at the first sign of challenge? Does this reflect how you are in real life arguments? It may not be that you don’t have a valid point, more that your Ego doesn’t feel strong enough to stand up for itself. Or perhaps your Ego plays it cool, too cool to get invested, finding a way of staying safe and not fully committing to anything?

There is no right or wrong outcome to this game (ha ha!), just an opportunity to learn something about yourself!

And a chance to learn how to stay clear the next time you have a disagreement.

I want you to kiss me…

July 28, 2015 By admin Leave a Comment

The power of owning our desires…

I said to Graeme the other day “I want you to kiss me” and the lack of response I was anticipating (I got the kiss just not any joy, or passion for that matter…) made me wonder if I should look further into what was happening.

The easy response was to get pissed off and go into all sorts of story about why Graeme’s response didn’t meet my expectations resulting in the following:

Mind games:

Making myself wrong: I’m not sexy/attractive enough, he doesn’t desire/love me anymore (victim)
Making him wrong: He’s just a ….for not giving me what I want, he’s just closed down (perpetrator)
Understanding his potential perspective: Maybe he’s just having a bad day (rescuer)
Letting go of personal judgement: the timing wasn’t right (higher self)

Looking a little further I replayed the experience not just in my mind but also felt it in my body.

What I noticed was:

I’d had the initial thought, not strongly linked to any physical desire.
I noticed that in asking for the kiss my attention was focussed outside of myself on Graeme.
This meant that his lack of response felt more painful to me because I was disconnected from myself.
I’d had underlying expectations of his response, leaving me open to disappointment and potentially leaving him feeling manipulated.

I then looked for something more (still outside of me) to make it better.
Because I didn’t want to feel the rejection in his lack of response I went into my head and made some judgments instead to distract me, and provide some self righteousness to prop up my ego self.

This all took only moments and happened so fast I didn’t realize it until I went back later.

Looking for a more enjoyable experience next time I tried a different approach:

I identified the desire for the kiss and took a moment to feel it fully in my body.
Staying connected with the feeling and so connected with my body and myself I approached Graeme with words of ownership rather than request. (self creator)
I said to him, whilst enjoying the feeling, that I would like to kiss him. For that is where my felt desire was leading me: from wanting to get something to wanting to express it from within me. (self creator)
I felt wonderfully alive and Graeme’s response was very different.
He looked me in the eyes, felt my desire, smiled coyly in a way that seemed like it was through his whole body
And he kissed me with real enthusiasm. (co creator)
It was a great kiss!
And Graeme didn’t mind being told he was desired either 🙂

And the interesting thing was:

I was enjoying feeling my desire so much that whether I was kissed or not became a bonus rather than a requirement!

Of course on another day I may have made the same request for a kiss and have it met readily and with enthusiasm (especially if I was fully connected with my desire for it) yet I am glad I had the opportunity to learn and share with you how powerfully fully feeling and owning our desires puts us in a power position.

Make an exploration of your own request versus desire and see what you discover for yourself.

What if Sex Wasn’t the Problem?

June 3, 2015 By admin Leave a Comment

When a couple is unhappy…

Why is it that couples experiencing relationship discord say that 50-70% of their distress is due to sexual problems whilst contented couples attribute only 15-20% of their happiness to a pleasing sex life? What is it that causes this obvious change in perception?

This difference is because unhappy couples will often focus on sex as the problem simply because this is the place their relationship issues become more evident, whether it is lack of libido or an inability to perform. It also seems like the solution will be simpler ie. a new technique, a little lingerie and some porn. In reality their problems start well outside of the bedroom and are more likely to be due to a lack of emotional intimacy and safety. Science is now proving what is true for babies and children is also true for adults- we have a biological need for emotional connection in order to thrive. This need is either avoided or unseen because the solution appears much harder to come by- dealing with those messy, uncontrollable emotions- yuk!

Hot sex is about the safety to be you…

Sex is about connection and really hot sex is about intimate, emotional connection and the safety for you and your lover to be yourselves- open, real, engaged with each other and gloriously in the moment. Yet we’re bombarded with messages that tell us hot sex is about novelty and excitement with mindblowing orgasm techniques, fantasies, new positions, toys, and maybe even new partners. Yet these solutions are related to our Ego’s need for more and more, an appeasement that lasts only for a time before the itch needs to be scratched once again. The reality is that hot, erotic sex is simpler than this, it just takes the courage and skill to be emotionally intimate, with ourselves as well as with our lovers.

When we’re out of connection with ourselves and each other it can be tempting to put the focus on sex and hope that it will give us the connection we desire and blame it when it goes wrong.
It depends on the way we go about it.

Sex doesn’t work when it’s:

– Physical sex based only on the mechanics-eventually all that rubbing becomes numbing
– Last thing at night sex for stress relief where it’s too hard to find the energy for anything else
– Performance sex that is purely outcome and orgasm rather than intimacy focussed
– Emotionally closed sex where little is felt due to the emotional distance (or fusion) of the lovers
– Unclear sex where there are unresolved issues or hidden agendas limiting both the pleasure and connection
– Sympathy sex where one person is trying to enjoy it whilst the other merely putting up with it
– Poorly communicated sex where no one says what they want/don’t want

It doesn’t work when you’re out of connection with yourself and not acknowledging where you’re really coming from. Take the time to get real and ask yourself if by looking to have sex you are actually seeking to:
– Relieve stress
– Be physically close but avoid intimacy
– Be needed
– Be validated
– Get Love
– Feel something
– Express anger covertly
– Act out or relieve powerlessness or shame
– Get high to avoid real life issues

Understanding yourself is the first step…

Get clear about what you’re actually doing in sex (and it does vary although we can often have a particular theme we focus on) because we unconsciously seek to get many other needs met in sex besides our sexual ones, needs which when hidden actually get in the way of both pleasure and passion. They get in the way as we behave in negative ways in our cover up story that keeps us away from our partner, or them away from us. It’s a normal thing to do so don’t beat yourself up about it. The value is in acknowledging what is happening so it becomes a pathway to sex that works rather than a block. Learn to observe how you behave when you are acting out your hidden agendas and seeing how you could choose differently.

Then sharing with your lover…

To do so requires taking a risk and being vulnerable, being real with yourself, and if you are able and have a strong enough container in your relationship, with your partner. Ironically this vulnerability creates the intimacy and heart connection that underneath our agendas we’re really looking for. We expose our bodies, minds, hearts and souls to each other for a purpose- our biological need for connection. It takes courage to reveal our intimate, emotional selves as this is the part of us that is vulnerable to the pain of shame, of not being wanted, desired or feeling good enough. It takes courage to open up to another when to do so can open up the pain of long held raw spots inside us that hurt as much, if not more than a physical beating. This is the paradox of connection, particularly long term connection- the source of equal pleasure, pain and love.

We see it over and over again in the couples we work with. Rebuild the emotional connection and safety and the passion flows, it doesn’t disappear over time as is commonly thought in long term relationships. We just need the support and the skills to access it. And the first step is acknowledging our intrinsic human need for connection as part of our biological make up rather than a weakness and understanding the ways we go about avoiding it.

If you would like support in creating more connection and safety in your relationship call us on 1800 TANTRA today!

Foreplay can Ruin Great Sex

April 18, 2015 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

Relationship Killer: Foreplay as the ruination of great sex

Foreplay- defined as what you do in preparation for the real thing- sex.

It will, if all goes well, get you some good sex.

Yet in order to have really satisfying, even memorable sex foreplay (unless you spend hours and even days at it like like Christian Gery and let’s face it who does that?) is more likely to get in the way.

Foreplay creates an implicit power struggle that limits and separates the lovers rather than uniting them. It becomes a doing with predetermined outcomes along with increased expectations and a high potential for mere performance or disappointment. In other words it activates the egos in your relationship.

Foreplay happens when…

both of you are at your most vulnerable, when you’re beginning to be naked physically, emotionally and sexually. This is the time when your ego is most fearful and most wants to protect you from being embarrassed or made wrong!

It is not so much what happens in foreplay that creates the problem it is the mindset that goes with it, this idea that foreplay is the lead up to the main game. It means there is a goal oriented agenda towards what IS the main game, thereby creating a need to get somewhere.

We commonly believe that ‘foreplay’ is for women and real ‘sex’ is for the man. This ignites a not so subtle power struggle, focussing each in their minds thinking about what they should be giving or getting, disconnecting them from their feelings and blocking enjoyment.

There is also the vital question of how much foreplay is enough, and who gets to decide?

All of this limits the ease and openness that makes being sexual in your relationship feel so great in the first place.

For a man foreplay can:

Be seen as something he needs to give in order to get his ‘real’ pleasure. Or that he needs to ‘give’ his partner an orgasm first to be a good lover.
So he creates a plan of action in order to get to his goal, and his focus is on getting his partner ‘ready’.
His level of skill and confidence will determine his degree of enjoyment and performance pressure.
Sub consciously he can carry resentment at this having to focus on her and hold himself back.
He may have fear of failing to get his partner aroused, or of enjoying it so much he doesn’t last long enough for the ‘main game’. With his focus on his partner he is less aware of, or able to relax and enjoy his own experience.
Carrying this weight of success on his shoulders can reduce his interest in trying again.

For a woman foreplay can:

Feel like foreplay is something she needs to do to ‘get ready’ for penetration.
This puts her into her own performance pressure with the feeling that the clock is ticking, putting her in her head ‘trying to get there’, creating tension in her body and stress from her overactive mind, the total opposite of the relaxation she needs.
If she has a belief it’s the man’s job to get her aroused it leaves her cold or pissed off if he doesn’t/can’t do so. This can stop her from actively participating in her own arousal.
There is underlying fear or resentment about either performing, being good enough or not getting ‘there’ in time and missing out.
In not being fully aroused woman’s pleasure in penetration is limited and it becomes something to get over with as quickly as possible.
The focus on goal orientation limits her ability to relax, open and surrender into the endless full bodied pleasure she is capable of, reducing her interest in ‘next time’.

In porn the focus is almost totally on penetration. In many women’s articles penetration is often seen as getting in the way of a woman’s pleasure. Both of these are limiting points of view.
In foreplay we’re trying to make things happen, getting caught in routines that soon become acutely boring and passion killing, where we know exactly what is going to (or not going to) happen.

If these are not reasons enough to change your mind about your need for foreplay in your sexual relationship there is an even more compelling one-

That our most profound experiences in bed, the ones that stay with us for days, weeks and even years, giving life meaning tend to come from moments of spontaneity or unforseen creativity that surpass anything we could have planned for.

Our very best experiences are nothing like our best-executed agenda.

In fact, all of our trying just gets in the way.

The more we let sex happen rather than making it happen, the more these breakthrough experiences can arise.

Instead of foreplay explore being in each moment fully from beginning to end.

Choose to be simply present without agenda in each moment of sexual connection, whether it is the beginning the middle or the end.

Experience it fully as it is right now, in this moment, exploring it fully, then this one, then this…

Regarding each moment of sex as one of unlimited potential just as it is, rather than a mere passage to somewhere better. Whether it is a moment of high arousal or valley like stillness, experience each one fully.
This experience of what is real and acceptance of what is builds trust and openness, great stepping stones to pleasure, especially for women. It is not about expecting a woman to allow penetration without being ready, more that this way of being invites it to happen without forcing. It also creates a freedom and spaciousness for magic to enter that gives a man a performance break.

Rather than foreplay

Focus instead on getting connected with yourselves – being present inside your own bodies, in the moment, breathing, connecting, feeling, opening. This allows your bodies to respond naturally, opening to the innate creativity that lives within us rather than being forced into following our own, or our partner’s egoic agenda.

The No.1 thing to know about you – you are more than your Ego!

August 29, 2014 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

You are not who you think you are.

And you are about to learn why knowing this matters.
It matters because knowing will give you a pathway to the most powerful and meaningful relationships of your life and if you desire it, to HOT, soulful sex.

Because what stops you from achieving these things are the elaborate power plays especially designed for you by your Ego to avoid real connection with another.

Such as:

– Fighting back to gain control over the person or situation
– Freezing and holding on to your position no matter how unhelpful
– Avoiding and shifting your attention onto something safer
– Projecting your emotional pain onto those around you
– Or getting the hell out of there altogether…

But your Ego is just a part of you.

Until you know this its limited strategies will control you. When you access what follows struggle disappears, the heart opens and ease follows.

This story starts with a trip to New Zealand, the adventure capital of the world by Graeme and his 3 teenage children all of whom are excitement junkies. Along with me, Annette, who somehow ended up on the trip even though she is afraid of heights!

First though let’s go on a tour of who you think you are right now.

I’m going to get a little heavy here but…stay with me it will be worth it!

So who are you?

Who you think you are is a manifestation of your Ego. This is your personality or persona, the part of you that thinks, judges, worries, plans, expects, desires, fears, achieves. It is the story that runs in the Left Side of your brain (the big spongy part at the top of our brain) and forms your Self Consciousness- the part of you that is aware of yourself. This part of you is linear and concerned with what is logical and what is known- the past (memories), future (at least its idea of the future) and lots of details, details, details like ”I must remember to buy bananas” or “she really hurt me last time”. It is what connects you with your external world, with those around you in your “ordinary everyday” reality. It does this by a language of logic, rational thinking, understanding and expression.

For example right now your L Brain is helping you read and hopefully understand this article.

Your Ego is the psychological part of you that thinks you are separate from everything and everyone else and seeks to be unique and special enough to get the attention it needs to feel connected ie. loved. This is why you work hard to achieve in life (and why there is such a boom in TV reality shows, Australian Idol and Instagram). It is also why you create the many masks of your

Attachment is vital for the Eg

particular persona- the good girl, the successful man, the hardworker, the honest one etc, ways of being that are more likely to get you approval. Sometimes you might create masks that protect you from this dance of approval eg. the rebel, the joker, the depressive, but underneath you care just the same. This is because your Ego holds your innate drive for relationship and sex at a psychological (rather than biological) level – in order to end your sense of separation and feel connected. Also because of this separateness your Ego loves to attach itself to anyone and anything. If a person isn’t available then work, food, alcohol, stress and anything else you can get addicted to will do. And because your Ego is always oriented to the future any satisfaction we gain from these things is momentary. This is not because you are inadequate or lacking, it is because you are functioning at a purely Egoic level.

As you can see there’s a lot of effort in this place…and its why having an orgasm is so blissfully freeing as it is your most familiar way of going beyond the Ego.

Going to get a little Zen here for a moment…

The Right side of your brain is how you experience your Soul. It has God, Infinite or “Everything” Consciousness rather than Self

Consciousness and is the part of you that is aware of more than yourself. This part of you is global and not concerned with needing or knowing as it already “is everything” and “knows”. It is fully in the now, with no past or future, just being with what is without needing to understand, strive or achieve. It is what connects you with your internal world, with internal self, your “extraordinary reality”. Its expression is through feelings, senses, images (internal eg. Dreams, meditations) and uses descriptive, poetic language. It accesses your body, your heart, your creativity, spontaneity and intuition.

Your R brain is what is allowing you to experience yourself actually sitting in your room reading this article- do you get the difference between R and L Brain functioning?

Your Soul identity is the timeless, boundaryless, perfect whole. There is no trying or struggling as you are perfect already. It is comfortable in the unknown as being everything means you are also nothing and you’re ok either way. There are no desires to fulfil as you ARE desire. You have no need to achieve or connect as you’re already there. You have no sense of separation, you feel connected to everything. At its deepest level there isn’t even a “You”, there is just everything. Strong R Brain experiences are like sitting on the beach enjoying the sea, sand and surf or having the best hippy like high…lots happening on the inside, not much outside.

Stay with me here as I hope understanding this will be as life changing for you as it was for me. And we’ll get to the thrill seeking side of a mountain in New Zealand shortly I promise!

Left and Right Brain are so different- how do they work together?

In addition to these two brain halves you have a pathway between them called the Corpus Callosum, this is the neural pathway which allows the two sides to communicate with each other giving you access to both. For an amazing insight into how these two sides function watch TEDx Talk My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. Your experience of life will be determined by which side of your brain is most activated and how well the two halves communicate. You began on the R side when you were born, moved into the L as you developed into an adult, then will seek to bring in more of the R again as you mature. To be psychologically healthy you need both. This is why you also have the Transpersonal or Witness Consciousness, the consciousness that is beyond or bigger than the persona, contains both Ego & Infinite Consciousness and is the gatekeeper between them. Tantra helps us access this part of ourselves and is what Tantra is all about for us. As the more developed this triangular pathway becomes the more present, capable, fulfilled and joyous as we humans can be.

Now picture me on the side of a mountain…

This is where my fear cultivating trip to Queenstown New Zealand with four adrenaline junkies seeking all kinds of thrill experiences came in handy as an experiment with my Ego, for how we deal with fear is a mind game. Picture me on the side of a mountain, all suited up in a parachute harness with 3 very lovely adventure guides (1 a hot American guy by the name of Drew hooked up behind me) all doing their best to convince a totally terrified me it would be great fun to jump off the edge. The things we do to ourselves!
Because your Ego’s number one desire is attachment it fears anything that threatens this.

My story is extreme but will show you the games that your Ego can play, see if you can resonate with any of these…

Here is what was happening in my Egoic mind:

Fear 1: Being In The Unknown- not knowing how it was going to feel when I jumped caused my body to go into a state of high tension. Even though the logical part of my brain was saying yes the negative part of it was creating all sorts of fear stories and saying no! My adventure coaches were telling me that once I was off the cliff I would love it but because I did not know this from experience I was staying right where I was.

Fear 2: Being Out of Control- imagining jumping off felt like being pushed off this cliff and tumbling out of control down it, not being able to right myself or keep myself safe. My Ego wanted to stay in on the cliff and in control.

Fear 3: Being Overwhelmed- imagining jumping off also brought a feeling of being ‘too much’, like a big wave coming over the top of me and dumping me at the bottom of the ocean unable to breathe! I wasn’t looking forward to that either!

Underlying these three fears is the Ego’s major fear:

Annihilation- complete destruction or obliteration, in other words ceasing to exist. This was ultimately my fear standing on the edge of the mountain. That if I jumped I would simply cease to exist. My fear was so great I believed if I jumped, as my amazingly encouraging supporters so wanted me too, I would completely disappear. Not logical but 100% real to my Ego self.

How is all of this important to you?

As you go about your day your Ego is continually offered many and varied opportunities in dealing with people and with life that challenges these fears. These challenges feel like your own internal “edge”. Such as applying for a job, asking for a date, negotiating boundaries in your relationship, talking about sex with your lover etc etc. And how you manage them determines your quality of life.

Do you fall into the trap of thinking the only tools you have are the defensive tools of your Ego described above?

Or do you trust your knowledge of your Corpus Callosum and Transpersonal Consciousness and access the responsive tools of your Soul? Tools which offer you infinitely more creative, inspired solutions with ease and joy? This is where a strong pathway between your 3 levels of consciousness- Ego, Soul and Transpersonal offers you so much.

Authentic Intimacy

And relationship is just the place to practice as you have lots of material to work with and a committed partner at least once they see the benefits to them!).

This trust allows you to choose your inner nothingness rather than your outward defences because you know that is just your Ego’s game. Depending on the level of challenge to your Ego’s desire for attachment this letting go into this nothingness can result in a slight feeling of unease or the deepest terror. But its only for a moment. The more willing you are the quicker it happens. To do this you need to trust yourself and the process. And remember its a bit like letting go into an orgasm and feels great afterwards!

The degree of surrender is relative to the degree of challenge.

There is no right or wrong choice here. Once spiritual teachers would say that Ego is bad and the only path is the dissolution of the Ego in order to connect with Soul and Spirit. But there is also value in building a healthy Ego first as without one you can get totally lost and overwhelmed in the nothingness that exists between head and heart. Learning to trust and rely on your ordinary everyday sense of self is important before trusting yourself enough to go into the momentary nothingness required to access your extraordinary Self- your body, heart, soul and spirit.

It is vital is to know you have a choice.

To know there is more to you than your Ego, and that when you are ready you have a map of how to get there.

HOW do you access ALL of your self?

1. When you feel your edge Stop.
2. Decide that rather than go out you are going to go inwards.
3. As you do you will have a sense of emptiness, confusion or not knowing. It is just your Ego surrendering. Trust that all is well.
3. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply into your belly exhaling gently. Observe your thoughts but don’t act on them, just let them come and go, keep breathing. This is your Witness or 3rd consciousness coming into play.
4. Now bring in your R Brain to feel- first on the outside- feel yourself sitting, lying, your hands, feet, buttocks etc.
5. Then feel inside your body- does it feel tense, relaxed, warm, cool, tingly etc. Whatever is there just breathe and allow it. Don’t TRY to judge it or fix it.
6. Then take your attention inside the trunk of your body, especially the front- your belly, solar plexus and chest. Notice what you can feel there. This is where you find your emotions and more subtle feelings. Whatever it is, again just breathe into it and allow it. Even if you feel blank or numbness, that is also a feeling.
7. Stay with whatever is happening until it shifts. Listen for the language of your heart in this place. Have an open mind, a solution or new ease, choice or beginning will arise.

With practice these steps take only moments and are life changing. The struggle disappears, the heart opens and ease follows.

This is the joy that deep relationship offers- when the unceasing struggle between Egos invites the desire to end the pain and

Tantric Intimacy

trust the surrender into the heart. That rather than avoid or leave you stay, surrender and connect in a way that offers so much more than your Ego alone has ever known. You bring all of who you are to the relationship.

This is also why Tantric lovemaking is more than the physical. For rather than the Ego’s momentary goal of orgasm you access the power of your R Brain through your senses, feelings, internal images and move into extended extraordinary reality…

Oh, and by the way, if you want to know what happened on the mountain, eventually I ran out of arguments, went silent and the guys took this as assent and pushed me and my Ego over the edge…where it dissolved in an overcharged screaming heap of adrenaline release that shifted into a huge enjoyment of the moment!